JB1 - Generic Random Deity

[Darkness]

Inherited turn: We appear to have an interesting name And we’re in a pretty bad position. Challenging, eh?

1 – 2950 BC: Persians start building the Pyramids.

2 – 2900 BC: Nothing…

3 – 2850 BC: Bejing grows to size 5. Sliders adjusted to prevent riots the next turn.

4 – 2800 BC: Babylon starts building the Colossus. A Roman archer appears outside our capital. Ceasar has some gold Alphabet and Iron Working, but he lacks Masonry and Ceremonial Burial. He’s, however, not willing to trade.
Persia’s got the Wheel now, but we can’t get it.

5 – 2750 BC: Nothing…

6 – 2710 BC: Nothing…

7 – 2670 BC: Granary finished in Bejing, settler started. We meet the Americans. They have all the techs we have and Alphabet. The Americans will meet Rome soon, so we’ll try to trade with Rome again, to at least get something for masonry and ceremonial burial, which they’ll probably get from the Americans in a few turns in exchange for iron working. And Ceasar is willing to trade. We get Iron working for masonry, CB and 36 gold. We trade IW to the Americans for alphabet and 19 gold. Babylon now also has the Wheel, but not alpahabet so we get the wheel for alphabet and 13 gold. We sell alphabet to Persia for 89 gold.
The result of this trading round: Tech parity and we made 59 gold.
We start researching mathematics at 10% (40 turns)

8 – 2630 BC: The Americans start building the Pyramids.

9 – 2590 BC: Bejing grows to size 6. We meet Korea. They have writing and contact with the English and the Iroquois. They don’t have IW and the wheel. We get writing and both contacts for IW, the wheel and 106 gold. We proceed to sell the contacts around, otherwise the Koreans will do so…

10 – 2550 BC: One stupid move of mine moves an exploring warrior into Roman territory.

We’re in a tough spot as there is only jungle remaining to settle…

I didn't make a dotmap (sorry, not time), but I generally prefer close spacing in cities. I'll leave this up to you though, as I'll be away for four days (workrelated )

Good Luck, we're gonna need it....

The save:

 

[Darkness]

Oops. I hit submit reply and I realized I'd forgotten to attach the save...
Second try...

 

[JustBen]

Could post the save file and/or a screenshot, Darkness? I want to see what I can do about a dotmap.

Edit: Too quick for me. Thanks, Big D.

 

[JustBen]

The immediate surrounds of Beijing:

 

[JustBen]

We lack recon to the SW; that's unfortunate. I still feel pretty confident about the purple dots. Green dots are "maybes"; I fully expect one of our neighbors to bag the Dyes before we can get there. The jungle makes it a problematic early destination. Yellow is the only way I can see getting access to the Whales, but the coast may wrap back around to the east under the fog. Might.

The blue dot is definitely aggressive. Too aggressive for Deity. There's Iron far to the north that we might be able to get peacefully, but why take Iron peacefully when you can get Iron and Incense after a bloody war with a horde of Archers? If we can take/burn Susa, our ring around the capital looks a lot nicer and the Blue Dot suddenly makes sense. I'm in no hurry to get there; we obviously need a few cities down first. And if we can seriously score Iron with a Settler, by all means go for it... but we'll need Susa eventually, so we might as well get some mileage out of that Barracks.

After we get another Worker or 2, that forestland should be transformed into useful things like Archers and Settlers.

[Edit:] Roster:
JustBen
Darkness
Kuningas (up next)
Greebley (on deck)
T_McC

 

[Kuningas]

Got it.
I don't have time during weekend. I'll submit save in next 3 hours. I'll settle to closer purple mark first.

 

[Darkness]

OK, but don't forget the yellow dot! That should be first/second, IMHO...

 

[Kuningas]

1 - 2510BC:
Beijing: Settler.
Slider: 7.1.2

2 - 2470BC:
Shanghai founded. Shanghai: Temple (or barracks next player can decide.)
Slider: 6.1.3
Persians and Koreans have Horseback Riding.

3 - 2430BC:
Babylons, English, Persians building The Colossus.
Koreans, Iroquois, Persians, Americans building Pyramids.
Babylonians settled near whales

Warrior going through Persian territory -> A hut in sigh.

4 - 2390BC:
Romans got the hut I think they got Mysticism.

Established embassy with Babylonians for 33 gold. Babylon: The Colossus 16 turns left. 2 citizens. Growth in two turns. Slider 10.0.0 (5 science breakers). Babylons are polite.

5 - 2350BC:
Beijing: Warrior.
England: Writing for Mysticism. England are Cautious.
Babylon: Writing for Horseback Riding. Obsoleting Chariot to Riders upgrade as there isn't horses available without early wars. Tech parity with 6 civs. Iroqois are down The wheel, IW, Writing, Mysticism. Slider: 7.1.2

6 - 2310BC:
nothing.

7 - 2270BC:
Beijing: Archer. Slider 8.1.1

8 - 2230BC:
Slider: 7.1.2

9 - 2190BC:
English completed The Colossus in London. Maybe they got GA.

Established embassy with English for 66 gold. (picture) English are Polite.
Canton founded. Canton: Worker.

10 - 2150BC:
Silks connected.
Beijing: Archer.
Slider: 8.1.1
Demanded Iroquois to remove forces inside our borders.

JB01_2150BC save is here

 

[Greebley]

I got it and hope to play tonight.

I may try to grab resources if I can. I don't have the game here at work so I can't see if this is practical. Do you think Ben's green dot NE of the dyes would be too aggressive? I am thinking it probably is with 5 squares overlap?

Persia is looking like the best first target with the iron, incense, dyes. The green dot does make more sense if we think we may go to war sooner rather than later.

 

[T_McC]

It looks to me like we are preparing for war ASAP, hence we may not want to build a settler at this point. With all the jungle in the way, it may be tough to link the dyes back to the core before the war starts.

If we are going to war ASAP, I think it will come on my turn. I'd like opinions on force size requirements: figuring two spears in Susa, I would bring 1 spear/6 archers to definitely win on the first turn attacking. Too conservative? Overconfident? I definitely would have a vet spear in the stack, as the Persians should get an attack at the stack before we can attack the city, so we'll have 20 shields playing defense.

If we have the forces to attack Gordium during the first war, I'd like to see it moved to one NE of the blue dot in the dotmap (on a hill, across a river, immediately claims one dye and probably at least 3, gives a free cultural expansion at two of our other cities).

Maybe we'll catch a break and Susa will be the only source of Iron for the Persians. Hopefully the AI's weedy settling will bypass the source closer to their capital.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Things look good. I buy a worker from Rome for 1 gpt and 102 gold. I will be going with the plan to build up archers to take suza.

2110 BC (1): Shanghai: barracks->archer, Foreign worker will improve and connect Canton, Our other worker to cut some forest. Lux 20%
2070 BC (2): Korea has map making. We can't afford it of course.
2030 BC (3): Beijing archer->archer; MM Beijing to make an archer in 2. Persia has map making too.
1990 BC (4): Zzzz
1950 BC (5): Beijing archer->warrior. I do this because the tree chop is in 2, so I want the tree chop to be meaningful. I have Beijing working the square. I read that this should give it the wood. I can't get shanghai to use the wood and still build an archer.
1910 BC (6): Beijing warrior->archer. Both code of laws and map making are owned by several civs. We could get a 2fer as england has only maps, but we can't afford it.
1870 BC (7): Well the chop went to Shanghai & totally wrecked my plan. A total as a result. I thought the source reliable; sorry about that. I switch Beijing to a woker to keep it size 6 for now (we need more workers).

Note: This is the first turn that Persia is roading its iron. We will want to attack before this is finished if we can

1830 BC (8): Beijing worker->archer Re-MM to 10 shields to build archer in 2. It is really too bad. If we had a bit more money we could try a 3-fer as persia and the koreans have philosophy. Our math gambit is still good, though I am not sure it will last.
IBT: Persia demands 20 gold tribute and TM. I give it as I don't think we are ready for war quite yet.
1790 BC (9): Zzzz
1750 BC (10): Beijing archer->archer.

There are trade possibilities still available if we can afford them. We could afford Philosophy, but don't think we could then get code of laws even with philosophy to trade. With both philospophy and COL we could get map making from England.

We have 5 archers now and some warriors. Persia has been roading the iron for 4 turns now.

I feel bad about the messed up tree chop. Does it always go to the closer town? Anyone know?
The save

 

[JustBen]

From Kuningas:

Demanded Iroquois to remove forces inside our borders.

Whoah! What for? Did you want a war or something?

From Greebley:

I feel bad about the messed up tree chop. Does it always go to the closer town? Anyone know?

No idea. Just the way the chips fall, sometimes. Since our actual "loss" is +10 shields to the wrong place, I wouldn't be too concerned. More grassland is its own reward.

It looks tough, but we'll cope. A big enough horde of Archers can dig you out of quite a deep hole, Immortals or no. I wouldn't want to go in with less than 10 Archers, and 15 with a couple Spearmen to escort would be preferable. Money will become a problem, so that needs to be considered.

TMcC, use your best judgment. If your trigger finger gets itchy, go smash 'em. If you want to save the pleasure for me, I'll be more than happy. Don't foget to peel Workers on the turn Beijing tries to grow to 7 -- an extra population there won't speed up our Archers, but dropping below 6 will slow them down. Good luck.

JustBen (on deck)
Darkness
Kuningas
Greebley
T_McC (up next)

 

[Greebley]

I investigated what it would take to attack them before connecting the iron.

It only takes an industrial civ 5 turns to road a mountain. We would have to wake up the archers immediately to move then so we could attack next turn and capture the worker.

Not getting immortals would be really big but attacking next turn would be rough (perhaps suicidal?) I lack enough deity experience to judge if this would be really stupid or not.

Fortunately, TMcC sounds more experienced :jump:

Note that I haven't traded for Persia's territory map, so the capitol might be connected even though it doesn't appear to be.

 

[T_McC]

I am away from my Civ computer this weekend, and will claim and play the game Sunday night. (This thing is moving fast!)

@Greebley - I have no idea how the forest chop works when two cities can each work the tile, I just know it always seems to go opposite where I want it. Of course, when it goes the "proper" way I don't notice it.

@Kuningas - A withdrawal demand when the units are next to an empty city?!? That's insane. I like your style.

I don't know about more "experienced", I can do math but I can't influence the pRNG. I was hoping the Persians would be tardy about hooking up the iron, but what are you gonna do. Next we'll hope they were lax about rax (I rhymed! ), and have to build Immortals from scratch. Even if we do attack soon, I'll figure they get the chance to build a couple of Immortals, and be more conservative on the # of archers needed to attack Susa. Not so much to capture the city, but to hold it. No point starting this war until we can win it.

 

[T_McC]

Slight change of plans. I can't guarantee I'll be back to my Civ computer tonight. If JustBen wants to swap with me and play his turn now, that would be fine. Otherwise I'll get the game and play on Monday. I feel bad holding the game up.

On another note, I have a guess on how the forest-chop shields work: Since the worker action completes "between turns", and then production is calculated for all cities, the shields probably go to the first city in the production cycle that can claim the tile. I think the production cycle order is in order of founding. So in this case the shields should have gone to Beijing. Just a theory, I haven't tried to verify this.

 

[Greebley]

The shields went to shanghai. It may be distance based. The forest was closer to shanghai than Beijing. If it is distance based and it was a "tie", then your guess is a good one for that case.

Edit: I found the reference that led me to believe it was the town working the square: Cracker's forestry article. No wonder I thought the source reliable. The article is a bit old. Maybe it has been changed since it was written.

 

[JustBen]

Okay; I was out of town yesterday, too. I'll play TM's 10 today, and he can play mine tomorrow. I'll post sometime before sundown PST.

 

[JustBen]

1750 BC (0)
Looks pretty good. I mean, as good as can be expected.

1725 BC (1)
Sell World Map around to all but Iro (who lack MM, like us). Romans have Math; c'est la vie. Included in our trades is a TM of Babylon, which turns out to be very interesting not for the Babylonian territory it shows us, but the Babylonian coastline. When we go to war with Persia, the Susa/Gordium line is the only front we'll face. Very important.

1700 BC (2)
Beijing: Archer -> Worker (to keep it at 6)
I swap Shanghai from an Archer to a Spearman (someone's gotta build 'em).

1675 BC (3)
Beijing: Worker -> Spearman

1650 BC (4)
Shanghai: Spearman -> Spearamn

IT: Americans finish Pyramids, start Great Library.

1625 BC (5)
Beijing: Spearman -> Archer

IT: Caesar extorts 23 gold and our TM. I guess that's half a Swordsman less for Xerxes to cope with. Rome starts the Big Library, London builds the Lighthouse.

1600 BC (6)
Rome & USA have Math, CoL, Philosophy, MM, and Literature. We have no money to spend on such frivolities.

1575 BC (7)
Beijing: Archer -> Worker

1550 BC (8)
Shanghai: Spearman -> Archer
Beijing: Worker -> Archer
Shanghai got a forest chop to finish its Spearman. This will give us a highway to Susa and its precious, precious Iron. The change to our map is also worth 6 gold on the trading table.

IT: America extorts another 23 dollar bill with our map written on the back. They go up to Polite. A harsh price for another half-Swordsman.

1525 BC (9)
Canton: Worker -> Barracks (they got a jungle cleared in there somewhere)

1500 BC (10)
Beijing: Archer -> Spearman

Okay, so here's the gory details:
Canon: 1 Warrior
Beijing: 1 Warrior, 1 Spearman
Shanghai: 8 Archers, 2 Spearmen, 2 Warriors (all veteran)

Beijing is building a Spearman intended for Canton. The idea is that we need to declare war on Persia and then march our entire force of Archers (with 1 or 2 Spearmen escorting) to seize Susa. This will cover the support of a few of our units, kicking our income up above 1 gpt. We'll also instantly get Iron, and we have enough cash to upgrade the 2 Warriors sitting in Shanghai to Swordsmen. Where we go from there is up to Mr. T.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/JB01-1500BC.zip

 

[JustBen]

Roster:
JustBen
Darkness (on deck)
Kuningas
Greebley
T_McC (up next)

 

[T_McC]

Got it.